On Remembering John MacArthur

A weekly conversation between Jonathan Leeman and Mark Dever about practical aspects of the Christian life and pastoral ministry.

Subscribe and Listen to on:

On Remembering John MacArthur

[Music] Welcome to this episode of Nine Marks
0:06
Talk. Pastors talk. Pastors Talk. Learn more about Nine Marks at 9arks.org.
0:12
That’s right. And uh we exist to help pastors build healthy churches. The purpose of this particular conversation.
0:18
Yeah. The purpose is to think about remember your late friend John MacArthur.
0:24
Uh when did you first meet? So, just to be clear, at this recording, John went home to do with the Lord about a month
0:29
ago now. Okay. Right. That’s right. Uh, first met him. First met him. I think I remember I
0:37
heard him at the 1995. I heard him in person at the 1995
0:44
Southern Baptist Convention in Atlanta. uh he was actually I think if I remember
0:50
right James Merritt was the president of the pastor’s conference and he had invited John MacArthur to come and
0:56
preach and John I remember the sermon John preached a marvelous message on vision of God from revelation chapter 1
1:04
and it was tremendous honestly it was one of the best messages I think I ever heard John
1:09
preach and it was followed by
1:16
uh someone making announcement out I mean immediately after John’s message which was just unusually good.
1:24
It was followed by this announcement out now there’s going to be something that’s been in preparation for a year. It’s
1:31
extraordinary and then you know the lights go down and a little bit of fog starts happening and it just kind of
1:38
production happens and I’m just going like wow this is different.
1:43
Yeah. You know we’ve just heard a weighty thing like that. no comment on that and instead oddl like references to these
1:52
I think it was a musical performance that was about to happen. Um, and I remember
1:57
you thought the dissonance. Well, I just remember thinking like I’m one of John’s guys. I’m, you know, if
2:03
there’s a contrast between these two things that are happening at this convention, I I’m with the first guy.
2:08
I’m with John. And then did you meet him shortly after that? You know, I don’t that’s what I’m trying to remember. I don’t think I don’t think
2:16
I met him then. Now, you know, Al was prominent at that convention and I think that was when we drafted it because
2:22
150th anniversary. I think we passed a kind of statement of repentance for the convention having advocated slavery.
2:30
So it was 95. That sounds right. So I mean I I I’m sure I saw Al at that convention.
2:36
Uh but you know John may have just been there for that message and then gone out. I don’t know. The the first time I
2:41
know that I talked to him was there was sometime in the early early 2000s like
2:47
2000 one two three somewhere right in there where um Eric Alexander
2:52
was supposed to speak at shepherd’s conference. Mhm. and uh his sister-in-law was very
3:01
ill and so Eric didn’t feel
3:06
I mean she was at death’s door and Eric didn’t feel that he could leave understandably and so he contacted John
3:15
and with you know apologies declined and John I think maybe through talking
3:22
to Al uh he had had listened to some sermons
3:27
of mine and was interested in meeting me and having me preach. And so I was at
3:33
Southern giving some lectures and I was staying in the house right next to the
3:39
chapel. That’s before they had converted all the sure the uh dorms and made it the sort of
3:44
campus hotel center. Yeah. Before they done all that. So the guest preachers had there’s a certain room you stayed in in the house right
3:50
next to the chapel. I was in there and the phone rang and uh it was for me and
3:56
it was John and he was calling to say that you know he had listened to my preaching and uh uh had a request of me.
4:04
He said it’s a little awkward because it’s last minute because one of our speakers has a personal emergency but I’ve been looking for an excuse to have
4:10
you out here anyway which I assume he was being accurate but also kindish and
4:16
I think Al was probably in part behind this and you know pointed John my way
4:21
and um John just said would you come and do this and so I said well thank you so much for the invitation let me talk to
4:28
my wife and I’ll get back to you in a day or two. So I called Connie and talked to her. We both agreed it was a
4:33
good thing to do. So I went and preached at the shepherd’s conference. That’s when I met John had that was you said two early 2000s like one two three four
4:40
somewhere right in there. I could look it up in my files and figure out what it was and the friendship developed after that.
4:47
Yeah. Yeah. It was John uh John was immediately likable in person. So even
4:53
if you know John John can be obviously it’s a famous understatement he can be a bit of a warrior in person about all
5:00
kinds of things imaginable. That’s I think that’s how he’s publicly perceived. Yeah. Well many of which I would of course agree with him on. A few of which
5:06
I would disagree with him on others which I just I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought about it much. But John was
5:12
uh a man of often very clear perception and statement and uh
5:19
publicly publicly in person you could not imagine
5:24
a more kind, considerate, gentle when we
5:29
were on the famous uh panel in 2019 that was a little uncomfortable with me, league, Al Sinclair, Ferguson, John and
5:36
Phil Johnson asking the questions. Yeah. Uh Phil asked questions that I
5:42
understood entirely why he was asking them. He and I had been having the conversations through the week. But anyway, as he pressed these me lian with
5:50
these questions, you can tell John the who’s the host got uncomfortable.
5:55
Yeah. And I remember watching that and thinking he seems like Well, and it’s not that John I think disagreed with the concerns Phil had.
6:01
Sure. But in John’s in John’s world, it was just an you just never make a guest
6:08
feel publicly uncomfortable, which I appreciate that. That’s part of John’s uh generation. It’s part of his
6:14
gentility. It’s part of his uh kindness that was typical of him.
6:20
Can you characterize your friendship? Yeah, it was uh you know from from a
6:26
distance. He was on one side of the country, I’m on the other, but it was uh as much as it could be from my side
6:31
close, you know, I would uh he was a close enough friend that I can remember, you know, watching this one documentary
6:37
and just phoning him, tell him he’s going to like this documentary and see if he knew of it. And Pat answer, his
6:43
wife answered the phone and said, “Oh, Mark, he’s outside cleaning something.” And I said, “Well, I’ll call back later.
6:48
It’s nothing important.” She said, “No, no, no. He’ll want to talk to you. Let me go get him.” And so then she goes out and he gets somebody comes in and we
6:54
talk for a while about the documentary that I had in mind and yeah,
7:00
lots of lots of little conversations like that over the years. Today we do a lot of that on texting. I
7:06
have a lot of those texting friends, you know, guys who live in different cities and so forth. John was definitely more of the phone
7:12
call generation and I’m I’m phone call who knows how to text. Yeah. So I did certainly to text John
7:18
some but more phone call who knows how to text. Yeah. I mean, I I last talked to John.
7:23
He died, I think, on the 14th. I talked to him on the 1st. Facetimed with him of July. So, and I was actually over here
7:30
in the building at and in the main hall. And so, I was able to kind of show him the building again, and he was lucid as
7:36
could be. Um, clear asking how Connie was by name. Uh, just Yeah.
7:45
Now I think there’s a public perception that the marked devers John MacArthur
7:51
andor the nine marks grace relationship hit some turbulence in 1920 21
7:59
how would you charact would did your relationship your
8:04
friendship with John change you you refer to that panel in 2019 did your
8:09
relationship with him change after that what was it like in the last 5 years yeah certainly Not from my side and I
8:15
don’t think from John’s side. I mean guys who are very close to him listening to this may know like oh well there’s a year or two where you know I I don’t
8:21
know those kind of things but no perception that I ever had from John was anything other than kind and friendly and if I was going to be in the area he
8:28
wanted us to get together for lunch. Uh so right after the SBC was in Anaheim and what that 22
8:34
23 22 21 22 I think it was 22. Yeah something in there. Anyway, uh I
8:40
just I drove up there and had lunch just with him and Bill Johnson. Yeah. Um I mean it was, you know, amicable and
8:47
enjoyable and Yeah. Could you join John MacArthur’s church?
8:53
Could he join yours? Oh, I could certainly join his because
8:58
it’s elder rule. And so I don’t know. There’s a statement of faith you need to affirm. I think you
9:05
I’m actually not sure what the standards are for joining. Yeah, it’s a good question. Now, if they were going to require that
9:11
every member believe in premillennialism, as John of course himself understood the scripture very
9:16
clearly, uh that would be a problem for me. I wouldn’t think it’d be that significant, but I certainly wouldn’t be
9:22
clearly in that position. And I’ve just been preaching through Revelation again this year, and I continue to not be in that position. Um,
9:30
could John join here? Well, our article 13 in the New Hampshire Confession is clearly each
9:36
church is independent. John would have no trouble with that. The way we take it as congregational is not in the
9:42
statement of faith. He certainly does not think scripture taught that though I think it would probably then what’s
9:48
allowable. So John might have been able to join here. Certainly certainly there’s anything in the statement of faith he wouldn’t have
9:53
agreed with. I don’t think so. Certainly uh I appreciated having him preach here and I
9:58
I preached there so there was certainly pulpit fellowship. Well let me so let me sharpen the sharpen the question. Are there things
10:04
that you know that you disagreed on? So for instance, you know, you and Lian
10:09
famously joke about, you know, pal baptism. Well, joke is the secondary thing. We do primarily just disagree.
10:16
Pabaptisaptism and about polity. What are those for you? And I think with John it wouldn’t be ped
10:21
baptism. It would be polity a little bit. I think John uh John was more congregational than is is often owned in
10:30
sort of elder ruled, elder back and forth. But I mean they had two services
10:35
and you as the author of one assembly know that’s certainly different than at least how you and I read the New Testament.
10:41
Yeah. Um but you’re look I’m having to go looking for things because generally we
10:47
were in great agreement. John is a bit of a controversial character. Yeah. Well in some circles.
10:54
In some circles. No circle. He is deeply beloved in some deeply beloved by some. Also, he’s he’s
10:59
held up as um you know, a fire brand that people don’t like in other circles.
11:06
Well, I mean, John was you know, John was the what the the son and grandson, if I’m getting it
11:12
right, of of more explicitly fundamentalist preachers. Man, did you ever read that letter he
11:17
wrote to Gavin Newsome just a couple of years ago? Maybe I recall. It sounds it sounds familiar, but I don’t
11:23
I mean, you know, John John was uh up for calling out people uh
11:32
Yeah. sometimes by name publicly. Yeah. In a way that I think I always enjoyed
11:37
his ability to do it. And uh I always admired his uh
11:43
conscientiousness in doing it. I always admired his ability to uh not cow out of
11:51
what popular opinion would be. I’m not sure I always had the same judgment he
11:56
did about when that would be most helpful, nor even always on the topics
12:02
that he would pick up to do that with, but generally. But yeah, yeah, that’s
12:07
where there would definitely be some little space between between him and me. I mean, it would be classically shown in
12:14
our two churches response to the CO restrictions. Sure. Neither one of our churches liked them.
12:19
Yeah. We were each our own individual local settings, too. There’s there’s local there’s lots of local uh expression of
12:25
those laws that we were both dealing with. They chose civil disobedience. We chose sue the mayor. U Yeah. Both were
12:33
trying to express our dissatisfaction with what the government was trying to do with the churches.
12:38
Yeah. when some of those disagreements came out publicly. Uh
12:44
how do you think through when a public friend like John
12:51
Yeah. disagrees with you or or or does things that you publicly disagree with? And
12:57
this is a less a question about John and more a question about you and how you process these things. Yeah. and friends around you
13:05
feel, you know, deeply upset by what so- and so has done. Yeah. And they come to you as the pastor.
13:11
Yeah. And a pastor with, you know, something of a platform and say, “Mark, you have to say
13:16
something. You can’t associate with or how what do you Well, that’s one of the joys of being off social media because I don’t have
13:22
that same pressure for immediate response there. Social media makes so easy.
13:27
Fair. Fair enough. But this this is a problem that pastors have probably had to deal with. time of memorial, right? H
13:33
how do you think through those kinds of like you’re looking at what so- and so
13:38
said, you disagree with it. Yeah. How do you process when to speak, when not to speak,
13:45
especially when friends around you are saying, “How how could he have done this?” And you say agree with your friend. Mhm. Uh certainly pray.
13:54
Uh certainly take counsel. Uhhuh. Certainly with those friends who speak to me, but also with others.
13:59
Yeah. Yeah. I I think with John I would say you don’t speak more often than not. Agree. More often than not, you don’t speak.
14:05
That’s right. That’s right. My although you know we can think of that whole pastor talk episode we did when I did
14:10
speak in tempmperately about uh infant baptism and Kevin D. Young wrote me
14:17
picking me up not on my position but on my tone of dismissal and I thought it
14:22
was a kind and accurate yeah remmonstrance from Kevin and we did a whole episode of that with Kevin which if you guys haven’t listened you can go
14:28
find it somehow. So I think those kinds of situations are
14:33
unusual. Thank the Lord. Um and I think with John
14:40
there yeah there just wasn’t going to be systematically very much like I didn’t feel the need to comment on esquetology.
14:46
We both believe in the personal bodily visible imminent return of Christ. Really happy about that. Uh you know how
14:53
that relates to the millennium in Revelation chapter 20. I don’t think we have to agree on have great fellowship together. and and we didn’t have to
14:58
agree on that in order to have great fellowship together. Do you ever think through the costs of
15:06
public affiliations? Is that something you process and think through as a minister of the gospel?
15:12
Yeah. Yeah. I think over the years and and being in T4G made it all very public from 06 to 22, you’re doing something
15:20
with or not doing something with so and so would be processed by, you know, the publics of like 15 other major speakers.
15:28
Yeah. Right. And so I I uh I don’t know if I had to, but I I sometimes did uh immediately
15:35
process that. And I don’t think I found myself too persuaded because I wasn’t
15:40
dealing with matters that were fundamental to the faith usually. Yeah. Right. So, you know, I disagreed with Lig and
15:47
Al on signing the Manhattan Declaration. Uh RC and John agreed with me on not
15:54
signing it. Uh RC thought that was much more important than I did. So, there’s
15:59
just a spectrum of things. I knew what Allan and Lee were trying to say in it. I appreciated what they were trying to say. Yeah. I didn’t want to eliminate the
16:06
distinction between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, which of course they wouldn’t want to either, but I think their signatures on that paper did. I
16:13
think Chuck Coulson intended it to and and uh Richard John New House and
16:18
whoever else was involved with that. I think, you know, RC and John MacArthur understood that and that’s one of the
16:24
reasons they avoided signing it as did I. So, you can have different judgments with somebody, but understand why
16:31
they’re doing what they’re doing. even in more serious matters uh you know there there could be a difficult
16:37
pastoral situation that you know I’m as a as a Christian as an individual
16:42
concerned about um I don’t have the responsibility of somebody else’s church
16:48
I’m going to give account for my church I’m an elder and a pastor here so I
16:54
think you know when it comes to uh John’s passing this last month
17:01
it’s not matters like this that consume my minds and my thoughts. You know, it’s it’s the the the man that I knew.
17:08
Gratitude for all that the Lord used him to. Gratitude and and admiration of a long faithful stewardship,
17:15
you know. Uh I had the joy a number of times of being in his home and uh John
17:21
had a a nice plain ranch house, you know, and you’d go in the front door and
17:28
walk down. It’s very like the house I grew up in. You’d walk, take a right, walk down the hallway where there were
17:33
three or four bedrooms. And the last bedroom on the right uh was his study. It was smaller than this room you and I
17:39
are recording this in right now. And there was his desk and his phone and his well-worn Bibles and, you know, his
17:45
books all around him and the looking out the window to his front yard. And you
17:50
saw what a profound It’s very much like being in John Piper’s home, you know, being up in his study upstairs. you know, it’s that little
17:56
cubby hole stuffed with books and uh you know, his Bible and you know, he spent just uncounted hours there
18:03
in some ways an ordinary man doing ordinary gospel work. Yeah. That the Lord blessed extraordinary. I remember so many times
18:10
John said to me or I would hear him say to others, you can listen to a long interview I did with him back in like
18:16
2005 when we did leadership interviews. So you can find that on the nine marks website. Uh John didn’t try to do all these
18:24
ministries. They came to him. Mhm. Uh I came through in that interview. I remember that they uh they would be an organization in
18:30
the Los Angeles area that somehow felt it needed leadership and it heard John and it saw in him I think appropriately
18:38
a an orthodoxy, a clarity, a stability that they thought, “Yeah, we can bring
18:44
this seminary up and and dock it here.” this Los Angeles Baptist Theological Assembly or whatever its old name was uh
18:51
or the college this same kind of thing. uh now grace to you that developed out
18:56
of John’s uh radio ministry and then it becomes cassette ministry then however
19:02
they modernize those things the sort of teaching ministry um and you know so many of his books that Phil Johnson has
19:08
pulled together from his sermons and yeah that they’ve uh they’ve created an
19:13
industry of edification a little bit like the way Ligonier has around RC stuff or desiring God does around John
19:20
Piper stuff you’ve tried to around my stuff but I won’t write anything so you out of all the stuff yourself. What I remember with that interview with
19:26
John is he he the way as I recall he chronicled it is like somebody came to me and said well how about a seminary
19:32
and he was like okay fine but you do it. Yeah. And somebody said well how about a tape ministry? Okay fine but you do it.
19:38
I’m just going to keep doing my thing right here of preaching the word. I think I think uh you know as John moves
19:45
personally off the scene as he’s kind of been doing this last year I if the Lord carries I think what will happen is at
19:54
least as a creature of books that I am I assume his written ministry will become larger.
19:59
Yeah. So I think the MacArthur study Bible is uh is important
20:05
and I think it’s widely used and will continue John’s influence. You know, I
20:10
brought my copy of one of the MacArthur New Testament commentary set. This is the one on First Peter. And uh you know,
20:17
I I actually have one of the blurbs on here. I said, “Clear, reasonable, understandable, devout. All these things
20:23
and more can be honestly said about this generation’s greatest single author pastoral commentary set. The MacArthur
20:30
New Testament commentary series is a help to Christians and preachers. forged in the study, fired in the pulpit. These
20:37
comments on the whole New Testament are a gift from one who loves Christ given to Christ’s bride, the church. I mean,
20:44
that’s like that’s like the thing that John worked on publicly. You know, this
20:50
is this is what he was about. Studying God’s word, teaching it to others, and building a whole community and pastoral
20:59
uh group and then even editorial group that helped him do that. I know we’re talking about John, but something I
21:05
appreciate about you, Mark, is the fact that everybody likes to use the language of keep the main thing the main thing, right? And first things first and
21:13
theological triage and so forth. And for somebody with as many opinions as you
21:18
have on secondary things and as many private judgments that you might have about this or that character, as well as
21:26
anybody I know, if not better, you do a good job of keeping the main thing the main thing. When it comes to going back
21:31
to the earlier conversation a moment ago, some of those public disagreements or some of those public differences are,
21:37
yeah, there is a little light bit of light between me and him. Yeah. you continue to maintain a charity and
21:43
even a kind of loyalty to your friends and let’s say especially even when there’s political differences because
21:48
those are the things that often prove so divisive is those political differences. Friends a little bit to the right,
21:53
friends a little bit to the left. I mean, how many times have I heard you say, “Well, you know what? He’s still
21:58
right on the gospel and he’s still right on these basic areas of doctrine.” And so you maintain that gospel charity
22:04
and regard somebody as a gospel partner. And so, you know,
22:10
obviously including things like disqualifying sin as well, but maintaining a basic integrity of a man
22:15
who is a basic integrity of his uh gospel message. I appreciate the way you
22:21
continue to extend that charity uh and and and partnership to such brothers.
22:27
And I think that’s gotten you in trouble at times. I think that’s probably there’s probably been a cost Yeah. to you for that.
22:32
I think autobiographically I think I could attribute that a few things to sort of contributing to that. I think I
22:38
certainly mean to do what you’ve said. I don’t think I I certainly don’t think I do that perfectly, but I think growing
22:44
up and uh serving the Lord largely in a Southern Baptist context where in some
22:50
ways I feel like a theological minority, I think having myself been an agnostic
22:55
and become a Christian, I think the gospel is always very fresh to me, always at the forefront of my mind.
23:02
Um, yeah, the fact that I deserve God’s judgment. And, um, you know, I may
23:07
disagree with somebody on dear Matt Pinson, who’s an Armenian believer at the Welch College in Nashville, but I
23:14
think Matt’s trusting the same Christ that I am, and I think he trusts in his atoning blood, and that is far more
23:20
important that anything divides us. And while I’m talking John Piper or a John MacArthur or Kevin D. young uh yeah or I
23:30
mean that’s just the fact that you know this dear brother um Scott Sunquist
23:36
president of Gordon Conwell right now PC USA egalitarian but I think Scott and I
23:41
are trusting the same Christ I think we would share the same gospel with somebody on the plane next to us and in my mind that just outweighs everything
23:47
else doesn’t mean everything else is of no significance depends on the conversations we need to have but uh when Ray Hilton and I have lunch
23:54
he’s the pastor of National Presbyterian Church here in town. Uh we have the same savior and that is more important than
24:02
everything we would disagree on. And the one thing I I’d add to that, brother, if I may just take it a step further
24:08
because I I I do this I I I think this is something I would commend to others
24:15
is your slowness to render judgment across time and space when these are
24:22
well especially space people who aren’t in your own church. How many times I’ve heard you say, “Well, I can’t play
24:28
bishop. I see those two friends disputing right now.” Yeah. I’m not gonna grab a dog by
24:34
the ears. Yeah. And and try to enter that enter that dispute. And and I find myself in that situation where two friend two Christian
24:40
friends in other places are falling out and both of them want you to take their side and you just say, “Uh, I’m not there. I
24:47
don’t.” Proverbs, you know, it’s so clear that you think the first one’s right when you’ve heard his side of the story, but then the second one comes along. Oh,
24:53
okay. Why did you invite him into the T4G circle of friends and speakers?
25:01
Well, Together for the Gospel began with me, League, Allan, CJ wanting to have a sort of preaching conference where we
25:06
hear each other preach, but we also wanted to invite our preaching heroes and they were especially MacArthur and
25:14
Piper. Uh, and then we were leg with RC and he heard about this
25:20
conference and he said, “I want to come.” So, we would love to have you come to RC. So, so we had the three older guys and then the four of us. And
25:28
uh if uh if John Piper brought the uh dead earnestness about every
25:36
conversation, you know, utter sincerity and going in hard and RC brought the
25:43
humor that could diffuse any situation. John was your just kind every man. Yeah. You know,
25:48
so and you’re talking about in the kind of the back rooms together and you guys are having a meal together because the together the gospel thing in
25:54
many ways was just trying to get these speakers together for every meal for several days in a row just have an ongoing conversation. We sat together
26:00
the front we went back we had our meals together. We discussed what we just heard and talked about and so it was rich rich fellowship and and the
26:07
speakers who have persisted have have let me know that what they really miss about T4G is not the conference, it’s
26:13
that fellowship. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now you guys had substantive theological and political at times or
26:19
cultural conversations. Not really political. Cultural cultural. Yeah. Some. And was he an active participant or is
26:25
he more kind of one of the you know any other times you have settings like that? You have some guys who talk a lot and you have some guys who sit back and are
26:30
quiet. John was a little on the quiet side but he was uh yeah he’s just the best way to put he’s
26:36
just the normal guy in the room. you know, when some of the rest of us, me or Lig or Al, can get kind of obscure and
26:45
historical and, you know, Kevin will be really earnest about this, you know,
26:50
this 17th century thing. Yeah. I mean, John’s just normal guy who
26:56
wants to read his Bible and play golf and love his kids and he he’s just and he was just wonderfully balanced and
27:02
and uh at at the at the conference he uh
27:07
again and again would bring clear simple needed messages. Yeah. Uh like the one from Mark 4 on uh
27:14
getting a good night’s sleep. Yeah. And the grow the growth happening, you know, while the man slept. Yeah. Yeah. Uh
27:19
I feel like that was early like 8. It it was it was one of the early ones. Yeah. It was really good.
27:25
Yeah. Well, we had him also just reflect on what it was like to have I think 30 years in the ministry and 40 years of the ministry. Yeah.
27:31
You or we published a series of tributes. Yeah. For John.
27:36
Yeah. With a number of those guys. Yeah. Yeah. I was over in England at a missions meeting when John passed and uh
27:45
a number of us were just communicating with each other. Yeah. and you very kindly volunteered
27:51
for nine marks to be a sort of platform for those tributes to be put out there. So we whipped around by email to a
27:58
number of the brothers who had been involved with John and together for the gospel and uh we all came up with
28:05
tributes, comments, statements, some of which were published on other platforms in longer form.
28:11
Yeah. Al kind of biography almost orbituary but uh I was glad to be able to give
28:18
voice to just a sincere appreciation at that moment when John passed. Yeah. I felt it was owing and and even
28:25
as his funeral is coming up or memorial service uh I would I was able to be at RC’s. I would love to be at John’s. I
28:32
was supposed to be at another conference. I’ve committed to be there. It feels like it’s right that I should fulfill that commitment. It’s it’s too
28:39
sure close to the time to replace that. But um I have a great desire to be there and certainly have communicated with his
28:45
family my appreciation for their dad. Yeah. I I thought the tributes from all of you brothers was was appropriate and
28:52
encouraging. Yeah. You know, thank God for uh the way you
28:57
were able to speak of him and and and may such be true of all of us. Yeah. Amen.
29:03
So, what do you appreciate most? Okay. You don’t like superlatives.
29:09
What are some of the things you appreciate most about John MacArthur’s ministry? Yeah. his uh clear intention to focus
29:17
his ministry on the exposition of scripture to build it all on God’s word.
29:22
Uh his welcoming of uh a pretty wide variety of people inside of that. I
29:30
mean, if you go to a shepherd’s conference even in recent years, I mean, there’s Bob Coughlin leading the singing. You might have Keith Getty
29:36
there, you know, a Northern Irish Presbyterian. uh you know Sinclair Ferguson preaching
29:42
um a dispensational missionary uh from Russia. I mean just but these are all
29:47
people who believe the Bible is in the word of God. Jesus is the uh son of God fully human fully divine
29:55
died on the cross for our sins. U yeah he just couldn’t be clearer on the most
30:00
important matters. And so and he was able to to stay there and
30:06
maintain that focus for decade after decade after decade. People talk about,
30:11
you know, our setting here on Capitol Hill in Washington. Fair enough. It’s a it’s a challenging setting in some ways, but man, John’s in
30:18
the middle of the entertainment industry, the industry that really creates the culture far more than DC.
30:23
Yeah. I think I think DC more we deal with the culture. John’s really in the cultural
30:28
capital. I mean that’s where it gets generated not just in this country but it impacts the entire planet.
30:33
That’s right. And for him to be able to maintain such a faithful witness over so
30:39
many decades is impressive. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s and it’s to the glory of God. I
30:45
mean Harold Gandhi who was a young man who had studied at masters his PhD in
30:51
Old Testament at Oxford and has gone back and and was helping John get a school started and then really just was
30:57
with John the last few months of his life was his sort of body man um was
31:03
talking to me about the last couple of days of John’s life and how he was even
31:08
as he would lose lucidity or come in and out how he was just insistent on the
31:14
grace of God in Christ, talking to the nurse, talking to everybody he could. I I think about
31:21
what will come out of me in my final days. Yeah. Like that. I think many respects our true selves
31:26
begin to emerge more and more as the guard is let down. And I I pray that what you just said about him would be
31:32
true of me and me, brother, when when the guard is completely let down. Yeah. So, imitate me as I imitate Christ, says
31:38
Paul. And so you would want to say to any pastors listening, imitate John
31:44
right here. Yeah. What is that? Oh, love your wife. Uh love your kids.
31:49
Be faithful to them. Uh go to a church and unless there’s a compelling reason to do something else, stay there. Uh let
31:56
your your calendar be determined by opening up God’s word and explaining it to the people, preaching it, teaching it
32:02
every day. Uh every Lord’s day you get them together. Uh give yourself to raising up the next generation of
32:07
pastors. I mean, who has had more of an impact on the rising generation of pastors? Uh, now I know not everybody is
32:13
influenced by John McCarthy. I understand that, but there are so many that have been. Um, yeah. So, I’m just
32:19
super thankful for someone like that who knows and loves the Lord and who worked to make him known through his own
32:25
ministry and the ministry of so many others. John, just like his calling and an invitation to me to come and preach, he raised up the ministry of so many
32:33
other men. Amen. Thanks for your time, Mark. Thank you, brother.
32:44
[Music] For more articles, books, and podcasts,
32:51
please visit ninemarks.org. Report.